


An error in judgement

by silverryu25



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Accidental Self-Harm, But he messes up, Error calls Ink names in his head, Error/ink - Freeform, Forced god of destruction, Haphephobia, Hurt/Comfort, Ink, Ink is trying his best, Kinda, M/M, Panic Attack, but it’s basically pet names, errink - Freeform, error, he’s just bad at them, hurt character, phobias suck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28902801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverryu25/pseuds/silverryu25
Summary: Error didn’t expect his day to turn into such a complete and utter mess. He especially didn’t expect to get injured badly enough to be on the verge of death. But at least that’s the worst that could happen today… right?
Relationships: Errink, Error/Ink, Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 85





	An error in judgement

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Chaomingo!! ♥＼(￣▽￣)／♥
> 
> Here is a little gift to thank you for being such an amazing sweetie (≧◡≦)♥
> 
> This is my fist time writing Ink and Error and I took a lot of headcanons I read in posts on tumblr and the like. I hope I didn't step out from their canon too much X3  
> It was actually fun to write them both :D

The woods were quiet. Covered in eternal snow that muffled sounds and made anyone passing through feel at peace. Seeing the beauty of the sleeping nature made it impossible for anyone to feel anything but calmness. Or well... almost anyone.

A group of monsters sped through the woods, dodging trees and shooting attacks when an opportunity arose. But the woods made it hard to hit their targets, especially with how practised all of them were at dodging and predicting each other’s attacks. Cause this was an old song and dance, one they have been doing for decades, if not longer. Even though it was one against three, it seemed like this fight would end as it always did, with no winner and no conclusion.

“Now!” A golden skeleton monster yelled as he noticed a gap his companion could use. The smaller blue skeleton didn’t hesitate for a moment and shot a blue bone attack, taking advantage of the enemies opening.

The bone flew, expertly passing between trees as it zeroed in on a black skeleton, coming from his right side. Later the black monster would probably blame the fact it was his bad side, his right eyelight almost completely blind, or the fact he was trying to dodge a golden arrow and an ink attack coming from his front and back. Or maybe even the fact that his magic was running low because he had been on a destroying frenzy for the last few hours. But it didn’t matter what excuse he came up with. The bone attack passed all his defences and found its mark.

There was a flash of blue light, followed by a sickening crack and a glitched out scream.

“Good work Blue!” The golden skeleton shouted towards his companion, pride radiating from his tone as he rushed closer to take advantage of their enemy finally being hurt.

“THANK YOU! NOW LET’S GET HIM DREAM!” The little blue skeleton yelled back as he rushed forward, dodging the trees to circle their prey.

The black skeleton they were hunting cursed under his breath, the glitches around his body getting worse as he grabbed at his right arm. It hung limply next to him, radiating agony and leaking blue magic. His breathing was laboured as he tried to focus on the three skeletons encircling him, waiting for a chance to take him down. Permanently.

He couldn’t see much, the pain filling his sockets with error signs, making his already useless vision practically non-existent. This fight was settled, he had no chance of winning, even as his strings flew around, trying to capture and stop his attackers. But the bright coloured skeletons were too quick, too practised, his strings too predictable with the pain and exhaustion clouding his mind. They would be upon him in a matter of moments.

With a growl and a sneer towards the yellow and blue monsters rushing at him, he focused ahead, looking at the last of the star losers that plagued his very existence. A white and brown clad skeleton, carrying a giant brush stood and looked at him, frozen in place. He wasn’t rushing forward like his companions were, instead focusing on the blue magic dripping from the damaged arm.

“Ink! What are you doing?” Dream yelled at him, jarring him out of his daze. “He’s hurt! We can finally capture him! Use your magic and chain him up!”

The order was barked out with absolute authority, something you wouldn’t expect from such a brightly coloured monster. And it did what it was supposed to, snapping Ink out of his stupor as he looked the black monster in the sockets and frowned, swinging his brush and letting a glob of ink, that would become chains upon contact, fly forward.

It almost seemed as if the ink flew in slow motion as the glitched monster looked behind it, barely seeing anything through the error signs marring his vision, but it was enough. His broken soul felt as if it cracked even more as the ink hit, wrapping around his upper body, pressing on the broken bone and making the monster scream.

The new weight was too much, he felt himself start falling backwards as his consciousness faded. He had to flee, it was his last chance. So he gathered what little magic he had left, letting all his blue strings dissipate, rendering him practically defenceless and blind, and summoned a portal behind him. It wasn’t a stable one, barely big enough for his form to pass, scraping his sides on the glitchy edges of the portal, as he fell through it.

Right into his anti-void.

The impact barely made a sound, the anti-void mercilessly swallowing it, but it made the glitch scream once more as his injuries were jarred and the chain pressed harder into them. Mercifully, the portal closed before anyone could follow him, probably due to his magic running out.

He stayed there, breath coming in short painful gasps as he struggled in the chains. With one arm completely useless, he wasn’t getting far. The chains were tight, bound by magic he couldn’t fight with his own completely depleted. But he tried, even as the pain got worse, the glitches covering his form spreading from the wound and covering more and more of his body. His sight completely gone by now, mind shutting down as panic rose. If he didn’t stop the bleeding, he might be in danger of dusting. And he didn’t want to experience that  _ again _ .

“Ruru?” A quiet voice called out to him, close, making him freeze even as the glitches intensified. When he didn’t reply, the voice asked again, louder this time, “Error? Shhhh, it’s just me.”

Error wasn’t able to recognize the voice through the sound of the glitches that surrounded his form. In his pained frenzy and fear, he forgot the one person he gave the key to the anti-void. The one person he finally trusted enough to let him come and go as he wished. All he remembered was that he was supposed to be alone here. This was his space. His anti-void. No one was supposed to be able to come in here. No one!

He started trashing harder, the chains making his injury worse and spread to his ribs, the blue blood spilling faster, covering the white floor. Suddenly, there were arms on him, pressing down on both sides, trying to immobilize him. They were trying to stop him from hurting himself but he didn’t care. All he could think about was that someone was touching him!!!

“...- down- you- hurt- … -help. - have t- ...rorr-!” Broken words reached him, making his panic even worse.

He couldn’t do this. He was defenceless! He tried to summon his magic, a bone, a blaster, one string! Anything! Just to pull this abomination from him. To stop him from touching him. To make it all stop!!

With a desperate whine, the glitches surged and a static sound sprung from Error as he froze in place.

A loading bar appeared above his head, slowly starting to fill up as Error lay there on the white cold floor, bleeding out in chains.

\------------

As consciousness flooded back, the first thing he noticed was the pain. It’s nothing unfamiliar, his glitches always cause him some amount of pain, depending on how bad they are at the time. But this one was more piercing and spread from his arm and his ribs. With a hiss, he opened his sockets but only saw white. This was more normal. Well as normal as it can get living in the anti-void. So he tried to relax and take stock of what he can remember.

He must have rebooted cause that always left his short term memory jumbled. Slowly, the past few hours came to him. He had gone out on a destruction frenzy when he felt some of the abandoned universes start to collapse. The infection of faulty and damaged code had spread fast so he had a lot of cleaning up to do. He’d been on his… fifteenth? Sixteenth? Universe when the star jerks found him. Yeah. That happened. He was fighting them and then… he got hurt,  ran tactically retreated to the anti-void and...

With a full-body jerk he jumped up, only to bend over in half as the pain in his arm and ribs flared up. He hissed through clenched teeth, squeezing both sockets tight, as he waited for the wave of pain to pass. Thankfully, the rush of pain didn’t trigger another round of glitches, only left him feeling like a truck ran over him… then backed up and did it again.

When he was finally able to breathe, the pain still there but tolerable, he looked around. His sight wasn’t the best, but spotting something in the endless white void wasn’t a challenge even for him. The moment he spotted the monster laying down beside him on his left, he froze. 

_ ‘WhO tHe-’ _ before he could even finish the thought, his brain caught up and he recognized the one next to him.

Ink.

Sleeping as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As if he wasn’t completely defenceless next to The Destroyer, the biggest threat to the multiverse. As if he didn’t just come from a fight with Error, a fight that left Error seriously hurt.

With a glare towards the sleeping ink stain, Error directed his attention to his own body, taking stock of his injuries. They were… less severe than he feared. His broken arm was bandaged and tied in a way so he couldn’t move and injure it more. A quick check under his shirt showed his ribs wrapped in bandages. He didn’t remember getting them hurt, but it might have happened while he was struggling in the chains?

He felt a shudder travel down his spine, a few glitches popping out over his form, as he realized someone had touched him while he was out cold. Even knowing that it was probably to save his life, the very thought of being touched while unconscious made his non-existent skin crawl and his sockets start to glitch out. The glitching made the pain flare up again, unexpectedly helping him ground himself a bit.

Taking a few slow breaths, he closed his sockets and waited for the glitches to pass, purposefully avoiding any thought about the touching. When he felt back in control, as much as he ever was, he took a deep breath to calm himself more, but it only made him jerk instead, his ribs reminding him of his injuries. Even sitting up was beginning to hurt so he decided to just lay back down on his back.

He turned his skull towards Ink, thinking if he should just join him and try to sleep. It will probably help him heal faster and he didn’t really wanna stay awake through the pain.

Slowly he raised his good hand up, placing it close to Ink’s hands. The squid was laying on his side, turned towards Error, hands raised a bit in front of him. Error pointedly made sure he didn’t touch him. Raising his eyelights to Ink’s face he was shocked to see them open, eyelights fuzzy and slipping through different shapes. He froze in place as if he was caught doing something he shouldn’t have been. Before Error could move, Ink’s eyelights stabilized and focused on him.

“Ruru!!” He yelled out, jumping up and reaching towards Error, making the glitch flinch as he squeezed his sockets shut.

He expected to be grabbed, maybe even jostled around making his injuries hurt again, but after a few moments of nothing happening, he peeked one socket open. Ink was hovering over him, looking confused, arms pulled back a bit so he wouldn’t touch him.

“Ruru what happened? Who did that-” Ink stopped in the middle of his question, eyelights changing shape again as his memory caught up. Error just glared up at him, waiting for that goldfish brain of his to remember what caused this.  _ Who _ caused this. “Oh Ruru... I’m sorry.”

The words sounded honestly regretful, Ink must have had a good dose of his paints to sound that genuine, but Error just glared at him.

“You know I didn’t mean to hurt you Ruru,” Ink tried again, one eyelight turning into a tear and the other into a soul shape. “I would have helped you escape after, you know that, right? I was just playing along to keep my promise.”

“You-u C-coUld HaVE kepT-t ThE-em aw-WAy l-l-LoNGer!” Error finally growled out, still scowling at Ink and making him flinch back a little. Ink sat on his knees, head bowed and hands on his legs. “I-i-I waS AL-lmost do-o-one.”

“I tried Ruru.” Ink sighed, looking back up at him, pleading for Error to listen. “But I couldn’t stop Dream anymore, you caused too much negativity at once. If only you let me tell them about your work and about us-”

“NO-O-o!” Error practically screamed at him, cheeks burning a deep indigo blue as he jerked up, only to fall back down with a hiss as pain hit his ribs. Taking a few shallow breaths to steady himself, he glared back up at Ink. “We-e agREed no one-E knO-oWs a-b-Bout tha-t-T ye-eT!”

The tone might have fooled anyone else, but combined with that blush, Ink knew his Ruru was just too embarrassed to admit he wasn’t the All Mighty Destroyer he pretended to be. Or that they had been together for a while. His expression softened and he gave his foolish boyfriend a wide smile.

“W-whaT arE yOU th-ThinKi-ng?” Error asked, sockets narrowing as he watched the change in Ink’s expression.

“I’m thinking how cute you are, Ruru!” Ink unashamedly burst out, leaning forward for a hug, only to have Error flinch hard, his sockets filling with glitches. Ink froze before he actually touched the glitchy skeleton, looking confused. “What’s wrong, Ruru? I thought you were okay with hugs now?”

Error didn’t reply at once, and uncharacteristically, Ink quietly waited for him to calm down at his own pace. He must have realized something was more wrong than he thought to stay that calm and patient. It took some time for Error to calm down enough to be able to talk properly again, giving Ink an exhausted look, too tired and hurt to manage a proper scowl. He was scowling on the inside and that’s all that mattered anyway.

“y-Ou t-t-t-To-UChed mE-e-e.” He managed to squeeze out, words barely comprehensible.

This made Ink tilt his head in confusion, eyelights turning to a question mark and a trapezoid, as he tried to piece the logic behind that sentence together.

“I touched you? But I thought it was okay now to do that?” He asked, completely confused by Error’s sudden rejection.

They had been slowly getting through Error’s haphephobia, starting with small touches like hand holding, and even progressing up to a gentle hug that Error knew he could break at any time he wanted. The progress had been tremendous and Ink was really happy about it, even his yellow paint felt more potent when he first hugged Error, as if the happiness wasn’t all coming from the paint itself. And yet, here they were, back at the start. Error scared enough of Ink touching him to badly glitch out before it even happened. Ink even remembered that Error completely crashed when he touched him before, but he was sure it was due to the pain?

Error was quiet for a while, but decided to have mercy for the air-headed paint bucket as he realized Ink wouldn’t figure it out alone. “I d-IDn’t-t Le-Et you...”

Ink’s sockets widened at this as he finally understood. Every time they touched up till now, Ink had always asked and Error for permission, and he had always given consent that he could touch him. Verbally or non-verbally. But he always gave this permission. This time, Error didn’t let him, he even screamed when he was touched and crashed. Even worse, Ink touched him while he was unconscious.

“But Ruru… you were hurt, I had to-”

“I kn-KNoW. b-bUt yo-OU d-Did it a-ANd i-I-I c-c-C-can’-t...” Error cut Ink off before he could finish that sentence but couldn't compose himself enough to explain properly. The glitch knew that Ink had to do it to save him, but a phobia wasn’t something you can fight consciously. And Ink made it flare up again. It would take time for Error to feel safe enough again to let Ink touch him. 

A few quiet moments passed, but instead of a reply, Ink just flopped back down next to Error, making sure he wasn’t touching the glitch anywhere. He placed one hand close to the one Error still had laid down close to him, then smiled at Error with his usual over-enthusiastic grin.

“Okay, Ruru.” Ink happily replied, making Error frown a bit. He expected the squid to be upset, not happy over this. “We’ll just start over, okay? And we’ll be hugging again in no time! Now you rest up Ruru. And I’ll get you some chocolate later!”

With that Ink closed his sockets and, apparently, fell asleep.

Error just stared at him, completely lost in the overwhelming optimism. Anyone else might have been disappointed or even angry that all their work was just reset back to the beginning. Yet here Ink was, ready to try again. With a soft smile, Error remembered just how he ended up with this crazy skeleton. It was exactly that tireless enthusiasm and determination to try over and over and over again, to make friends with Error, that got them where they are now.

As more than friends.

Slowly, making sure Ink wouldn’t wake up, Error moved his hand. He gently touched Ink’s outstretched hand with the tips of his phalanges. The touch was as soft as a feather, but it was there. He watched a few moments, trying to process what he was feeling, but there was no repulsion or fear. Just a warmth spreading from the place where their bones touched.

With a soft sigh, Error closed his sockets, letting himself drift off to sleep, missing the way Ink’s smile spread.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!! :D  
> And don't worry, Ink will be hugging Error in no time again ;)
> 
> Just a little explanation since it wasn't explained in detail in the fic about Error's side of things :3
> 
> I'm using the headcanon that Error is the "forced god of destruction" but not in a sensless way. He doesn't destroy just for the sake of destroying abominations and their universes. He destroys the universes that have multiplied too much and have been abandoned too long, so their code goes corrupt and if left alone the universes would both collapse on their own and "infect" any universes close to them.  
> So Error is basically being the "multiverse janitor" by destroying any AU's that are falling apart :/
> 
> Ink knows this, but no one else does, at least not Dream or Blue, and Error made him promise not to tell them or they wouldn't date. Why you ask? That's stupid of him? ....... well Error isn't the most sane monster out there, right? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
